All The Best Stories . . .: April 2010

Primary Temple Trip

Our stake had a Primary Temple trip yesterday. About 120 kids ages 7-12 were there. We rode buses up to Boston. We got to hear from the Temple President, Pres. Wood, in the beautiful Belmont chapel with it's pipe organ, and beautiful architecture that compliments the natural setting around it perfectly. There are picture windows in the primary room looking out at the temple. After that, we broke into three groups for activities and trips up the hill to the Temple.

At the temple, groups of 3-4 kids at a time were able to enter the Lobby and write names on the prayer rolls of people they know who are sick or sad so special prayers can be offered for them in the temple.The kids were reverent, well behaved, and really felt the spirit. They learned about what is done in the temples, the purpose of them, the Holiness of them, and about the sacrifices made to build this particular, beautiful House of the Lord.

Garrett doesn't like the sun in his eyes, or this could have been a really nice photo . . .

Our wonderful friends the Sanville girls and Emily

Girls waiting to get their photos taken in front of the Temple

It was a beautiful day and wonderful experience. Garrett said that he felt like Heavenly Father and Jesus were right there beside him in the Temple. He also said, "I didn't even have to try to be quiet, it was just so natural to be quiet there."

Beautiful Kat

Taking photos of the flowers - she was very impressed that there were all white daffodils for the Temple grounds.

Emily

Garrett inspecting and contemplating the packet the Temple matron gave him.

The Boston Temple has a "Tree of Life" theme throughout the architecture - this tree right in front fits the theme well too.

Sadie, Samuel, Emma and Katelyn listen to Bro. White explain how Pres. Hinckley chose this site for the Boston Temple.

Gillian listens thoughtfully too, with Jai in the forground and another boy from our stake.

Tessa, Emily, and Katelyn

Sadie's happy face

I loved how Kat's dress matched the flowers.

It wasn't quite warm enough to take the sweater off though.

After the walk up the hill from the beautiful Belmont chapel, the kids saw the temple like this. Kat of course took a picture first thing.

Garrett said, "Wow!"

Walking up the hill from the chapel.

Near the bottom of the hill up to the Temple - it is located on Belmont hill,

the second highest hill in the Boston area.

Gillian, Kathryn, and Sierra

Garrett

Zoo trip #2

Providence, RI - The Roger Williams Park Zoo

Swan boat rides

Becca enjoying the PINK flamingos

Garrett, Jacob, and Becky by the giraffes

It feels like you are almost in there with them sometimes,

It was sunny mostly, but clouded over some at times. It would be fun to watch the elephants play in this water in the summer.

This baby smiles all the time!

All the kids we had at the zoo, minus baby Chloe (above) and one friend that was with us. It was spring break and there were so many people there - unbelieveable. It was still fun, but keeping track of all our kids in the mass of people there was a challenge at times.

Back to front, Garrett, Katelyn, Spencer, Sadie, Alaina, Kathryn (standing in back), Kiera, Kaitlyn, a friend (her sister didn't want to sit in the photo), Jacob, Becca, Brandon, and Emily - fun, fun!

A few random photos

Keira stealing frosting off of her Snow White cake at her birthday party.

Kathryn modeling clothes for Trek at one of our sewing Saturdays

Isn't she adorable?

Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters . . .

Crews putting the pole back up after a storm knocked it down. The storm was Saturday night. Miraculously we had power Sunday morning to get ready for church (scary that the pole that was on the ground had live wires then though), then no power until late Monday afternoon. It was only a day, but really hard. We took showers at Grandma and Grandpa's house (they were in Utah), got creative with our cooking, kept the woodstove burning, and spent some fun hours in the dark. Gregg borrowed a generator from Rob to hook up essentials like the fridge, and our downstairs freezer, and the TV :) for the night after the kids were asleep :) Love my husband!!!

Pinewood Derby

Garrett was very happy so see his car do so well at this Derby! Here is his smiling face next to the results board - you can see that #2 finished first in all of it's races except one. That one he lost to Garrett's car. Garrett had Three second place finishes (all behid #2, I think . . .) and won the rest of his races - so he placed second over all.

All the cars are below

The bathtub car is #2, the Derby winner. Made by our old friends the Mahler's. It was nice to see Noah's car win, because there were a few comments about how great his creativity was but "no aerodynamics so it can't be very fast . . ."

Garrett's car is the red one with yellow flames, #8,

in the middle above and winning the race below.

The only time Garrett's car beat the bathtub :)

The bathub in first, Garrett second, and the competition close behind. They actually used this photo to help decide the places in this race it was so close!

Zoo Trip # 1

Rebecca wanted to go to the zoo for her birthday last year, but she got sick and it just never happened. This year we're making up for it - two trips so far.

This is at Forest Park Zoo in East Longmeadow, MA. It's a cute little zoo in the middle of a really pretty park.